372 



PLANTS AND MAN 



It is an annual plant with large white flowers which give rise to 

 large capsules one to two inches in diameter (fig. 240). Guts are 

 made on the sides of these when they are full sized but not yet 

 ripe, and the latex exudes and partially hardens on the capsule. 

 It is then scraped ofl" and molded into cakes, wrapped, and 

 sent to the world's markets. 



Crude opium contains a number of alkaloid substances, chief 

 among which are morphine and codeine. It is refined to yield 

 these and other derivatives which are used in medicine to relieve 



pain and induce sleep. Because of 

 the habit forming nature of these 

 drugs, their use, production, and 

 transportation is carefully regulated 

 in most countries. In other countries, 

 notably China and India, opium is 

 widely smoked or eaten to produce 

 a semi-conscious condition on the 

 part of the user. Continued use of 

 this, or its derivatives, results in 

 physical and mental breakdown. 

 Most of the medicinal opium comes 

 from Turkey; India and China pro- 

 duce large amounts of a lower grade 

 opium which is used for non-medi- 

 cinal purposes. 



Chaulmoogra oil is a fatty oil 

 obtained by pressing the large seeds 

 of a tall jungle tree known as the 

 chaulmoogra tree. This tree is native 

 to Burma, and other southeastern Asiatic regions, where its 

 seeds and oil have long been used by the natives as remedies 

 for skin diseases. Experiments with this oil as a possible cure for 

 leprosy have resulted in the chemical refining of the crude oil to 

 yield certain acids, or alcoholic extracts of such compounds, 

 which are successful in curing the disease. Treatment with these 

 derivatives is likewise much less painful than that using the crude 

 oil. Thus chemistry and medicine have rendered curable one of 

 the most dreaded and heretofore uncurable diseases of man. 



Fig. 240.— Opium comes 

 from an annual species of 

 poppy native to western Asia. 



